heads. One fellow singled me out. He had a tapered waist and shoulders so wide he looked as if he had been hung up like a tunic with a pole through its sleeves: a gymnasium freak. It did him no good. Without waiting for his carefully rehearsed approach, I kicked him below the belt, banged the stub of my torch down hard on his neck as he doubled up, and flung him back into the scrum. Across the room, Sergius grinned. I had no time to grin back, for someone else ran at me with a stool, legs first. I snatched one of the legs and yanked it aside, going in with my elbow and knee.
The girls who worked here were clustering together, some hanging in the doorways of the refectory. A small group rushed in with bigger ideas, spitting, chucking trays and cups about, pinching, scratching, and pulling hair. I could not tell which side they supported – perhaps any that enabled them to get even with men for once. One mighty dark-skinned amazon chose to come at me, huge breasts thudding as she ran. The charge petered out, to my relief, and she sank her teeth into my hand. I grabbed her nose and twisted it hard until she let go.
Two of the lads were working well together, knocking criminals out in a well co-ordinated routine. But elsewhere others were suffering. We were greatly outnumbered. We soon ran out of both energy and flair. There was a thunder along the main corridor. Prostitutes raced past screeching. Martinus came into the room backwards, using crossed broom-handles to fend off three or four attacking heavies. Behind him, laughing as they chose victims to slaughter, were the Miller and Little Icarus.
The small snarling form of Icarus hurtled straight at me. I grabbed an unconscious street villain by the shoulders of his tunic
and used his body to block the impetus. Icarus had a knife. Well, it might be illegal, but I'm the kind of law- abiding citizen who fully expects to meet the other sort, so I had one as well. Sparks flew as we clashed hasp to hasp. I gripped his spare wrist with my free hand and banged against his knife arm to break the deadlock of our weapons. Then Martinus sent one of his own attackers flailing into Icarus. I disarmed him and knocked him over. He was still kicking, but after living in a Smaractus tenancy, I knew how to stamp on beetles.
As soon as Icarus gave up and just prayed that he could die now, I tried to help my comrades. The Miller was mashing bodies left and right; Sergius had been crowded into a corner by some street slime, but was keeping the honours even. Martinus was down; he was covered in blood, though still jabbing with his brooms. Identifiable customers were thin on the ground. Our chance had gone. We were facing a massacre. At that moment I saw in the doorway the bemused-looking figure of the Very Important Patrician who had been Lalage's best customer, hot for an evening of exotic massage with the sinuous proprietress.
No one could have told him Lalage was dead; only I knew. The magistrate (to allude to him with courteous vagueness) was finding it hard to comprehend that his gilded boots had stepped into the dark outer suburbs of Hades. As usual, he was followed by his lictors. They were shrewd men, trained to spot trouble two streets away. They grasped what was happening at once.
Martinus muttered, `Oh gods. Do us all a favour, Falco – march the marble-prancer out of here before he knows what's happening!'
I had no need to bother. Macra, bright girl, was already wheeling him off somewhere. The lictors, having gaped at the blithe anarchy before them, rushed up the corridor after him, already forming into a protective phalanx. Well, all except one rushed off. He had spied the Miller, who at that moment was raising a table above his head with the aim of squashing Sergius like a rabbit beneath a wine-cart wheel. With a roar of delight the lictor unfastened the gold ribbon on his bundle of rods. Then he hooked out an axe.
To those of you who may have wondered, I can now reveal that the axe in a lictor's ceremonial bundle is a real one – and sharp.
The honed edge glittered briefly. The lictor had only had time to grip his weapon by the far end of its handle, but he knew what to do. He swung low. He swung his axe in a wide, beautiful halfcircle like a scythe. He swung to cut the Miller off at the ankles… I looked away.
I never saw what happened to the lictor. I reckon he escaped. I doubt if he wanted any credit: there was a man who had truly enjoyed himself.
The omens suddenly grew more bleak for us. Tibullinus and Arica had returned with a century of men. They were fresh, and they were mean. They burst in ready to kill us all. For a few hairy moments Tibullinus and his patrolmen squared up to clear the party. I managed to scramble across the wet, bloody floor towards Sergius, who was smashing down shutters at a window. The other lads forced their way through to us, dragging Martinus. Opposite, the two narrow doorways both filled with ugly vigiles. Any criminals who could move were dragging themselves aside to leave room for these heroes from the Sixth to charge. We lined up to do our best. The shutters would serve us as weapons. Maybe one or two of us could climb out to the street. There were more troops in the street, however – we could hear that.
Someone said something to Arica. He passed it on to Tibullinus. Next minute the two doorways were empty, and so was the outer corridor. Girls rushed past again, this time in the other direction, jostling to reach the street door. We stood feeling abandoned, then we tore outside after them.
We fell out into a streetfight. It looked like some crazy public service exercise. There were vigiles everywhere. They were fighting each other. Suddenly I realised that in their midst were Petronius, Fusculus and Porcius. These were not the Sixth Cohort attacking themselves, but the Sixth being set upon by the Fourth. Nothing like it had happened since the civil wars.
A man adept in violence crashed across the street towards me. He was locked in a hold with Tibullinus, a hold of painful illegality. As I winced, stepping back to give him space, he broke a bone somewhere in the centurion with a horrendous crack, then put in a punch like a pile-hammer. Tibullinus lay still. His assailant stood up. He jerked his chin up derisively as if despising the weak opposition.
Across the road, Petronius clung in the doorway of the Oily jug, catching his breath. He grinned at me wryly. The vanquisher of Tibullinus looked at both of us.
`Nice work,' I said. I meant it too.
Whatever we thought of him, Marcus Rubella had come good.
The turmoil continued. It was a head-to-head conflict of the foot patrols now; I stood back, near the tribune, and watched. Then I glimpsed through the fighting that Petro had someone with him. He was talking to Porcius.
The lad looked confused. He was shaking his head vigorously. Even though not a word was audible I knew what I was witnessing: my old friend had chosen this moment of grief and commotion to put his raw recruit through a disciplinary interview.
I knew why. Petronius had remembered the time when Balbinus Pius, awaiting sentence and his legal right to exile, was under house surveillance by the Sixth Cohort. He had been guarded by Tibullinus and Arica, whom we now knew were in his pocket. An officer of the Fourth had been assigned to them as an observer. That man was among the party, led by Tibullinus and Arica, that had brought Balbinus to Ostia. Presumably that officer had known Linus would be on watch once Balbinus joined his ship. The observer had been Porcius.
Petronius must have been suspicious for some time. This explained why he had been so hard on the recruit; why, too, when he needed the little black slave Porcius had been looking after, Petro had been so insistent it was Fusculus who fetched the child, protecting the witness against `accidents'. It explained why Petronius had lost his temper so badly with Porcius.
He was angry again now.
I saw Martinus and Fusculus conferring as they kept Petronius under scrutiny. They too had worked out what was going on. Marcus Rubella, completely expressionless, stood at my side with his arms folded, watching them all. Ex-centurions are the hardest men you can meet. When Martinus and Fusculus began walking grimly towards Porcius and their chief, Rubella and I both turned and left the scene.
LXIV
FOR DAYS ROME revelled in the stories: how down in the Eleventh region fighting had broken out among the vigiles, leaving several dead and many sorely hurt. It had been necessary for a Very Important Patrician, horrified by the breakdown of order, to send one of his own personal lictors to the Praetorian Camp to call out the Urban
